


Phantom Library

by reliquiaen



Series: College Clexa [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4018231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reliquiaen/pseuds/reliquiaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: It’s super late and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantom Library

The library had apparently been dark for a while. Lexa blinked as she looked up, but outside the windows was nothing but shadow. She rolled her watch across her wrist to check the time. Well, she’d definitely missed dinner with Anya.

But with any luck she’d also have missed that blonde girl from across the hall. She’d gone into a panic the night the blonde had slept on their couch… Clarke, her name was Clarke. Not that Lexa had made a point of remembering that.

But she’d bailed well before Clarke woke up so they’d never managed breakfast. And since then Lexa had made it a point to be at her apartment as little as possible just on the off chance Clarke wanted to keep her promise. She had Anya, what more could she want? Friends were just time consuming.

Lexa sighed, placing her pen in the fold of her notebook. Now her mind was wandering to places she didn’t want it to go, so she stood, intent on finding something to distract it with. Perhaps another textbook on the political landscape in the mid nineteen hundreds would suffice. She slipped out of her study room, hoping the soft glow from her laptop would be enough to guide her back later and headed for the nearest shelf of political books.

Thankfully, ninety percent of the books for her subjects were thick and dry and more than capable of putting her to sleep at this hour. She stretched up on her tiptoes to pull one of the massive tomes off the top shelf. It landed heavily in her arms and she rocked backwards to keep her balance.

She had to hold it up awkwardly and tilt the cover to try and make out the title, but Lexa thought this was the one she wanted… maybe. Just to be safe, she tucked it under her arm and squinted up at the others. Taking two couldn’t hurt; she just had to figure out which of the titles down the spines looked like the name in her head through the gloom.

Lexa had only just reached up to slide another book from the shelf when someone crashed into her rather forcefully. She dropped the book under her arm and expected the other to slip off its shelf, but it didn’t.

Her hand grasped automatically at the person who’d barrelled into her which mercifully saved her from sprawling to the floor. To her dismay, the person whose arm she’d latched onto was Clarke. Guilt flared in the pit of her stomach and she could only be grateful that in the darkness, Clarke probably wouldn’t be able to see the pink tint her cheeks.

“Oh my god,” Clarke huffed, her wide eyes not seeming to focus on Lexa. She was too busy looking back the way she’d come. Clarke’s hand fumbled around with the fabric of Lexa’s sleeve until she found her wrist and then she clamped down hard. “Holy shit.”

Lexa sighed. “You okay?”

Clarke spared her a glance then, recognition lighting up her eyes for a moment, but then she went back to looking down the aisle. “I swear to god there was a ghost standing by my table. Scared the daylight out of me,” she mumbled.

“A ghost?” Lexa enquired flatly. Really?

“Oh yeah,” Clarke laughed, but the sound was forced. “I know. A _ghost_ , right? But it was standing there with one of those old lantern things watching me study. It was like… a guy in a robe only I could see through him and his face had no features. But the fabric was all billowy and it had no feet. _No feet_. Creepy.”

“Sure, okay.” Carefully, Lexa attempted to extract her wrist from Clarke’s vice-grip. She didn’t have much luck. “I’m sure it’s gone now.”

But oh lord was _that_ the wrong thing to say. Clarke turned her big blue eyes on her, expression surprisingly open. “Will you come with me?”

Lexa wanted to say no. But instead, “Sure,” fell out of her mouth. Of course it did.

Clarke’s face lit up in a massive smile though and somehow that made her slip up worth it. “Thanks.” She let her pick up her textbook but didn’t release Lexa’s wrist, simply held tightly to it as they walked. And she stopped abruptly at the end of one of the shelves to peek around the corner. Her grip contracted briefly and then her shoulders slumped. “It’s gone.”

Lexa supressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Good.” She sucked in a deep breath. “That’s good.”

She slipped her hand free then, Clarke’s grip having slackened as they reached the table. A step back was all she managed, not quite able to walk away. A single soft word made sure of that.

“Lexa.”

Honestly, she was mostly just surprised that Clarke had even remembered her name. Still, she twisted. “Yes, Clarke?”

And the other girl blinked, clearly shocked for the same reason. She recovered quickly. “Can I… Um, come study with you?” Her jaw tensed as if those words had been hard to speak. And silence filled the space between them after that. Lexa had no clue what to say. “Just… well in case the ghost comes back, you know?” Clarke added, obviously feeling some need to justify her request.

Lexa had spent the better part of the last fortnight avoiding Clarke and yet she still nodded her head shortly. In effect ruining all that hard work. Not that she’d really been all that successful in the first place.

And her answer pulled that amazing smile out again.

“Thank you.”

Hastily, Clarke cobbled together her things. She didn’t even bother to put them in her bag, just clutched them to her chest as she followed Lexa back towards her study room. Her laptop did actually provide just enough light that she didn’t get lost. So that was nice.

Lexa dropped her newly acquired textbook onto her table and flicked the light on in the room. After a hesitant moment, Clarke spread her books out on the table across from her. In the light now, her eyes were a startling blue rather than the stormy grey they had been before. It took Lexa another few seconds to realise she was sort of staring and then she ripped her gaze away, focusing on her books.

“You don’t believe in ghosts do you?” Clarke asked after a moment.

She shrugged. “Not really. I’m not certain they could hurt you, at any rate.”

Another lengthy pause was almost enough for Lexa to look back up at Clarke. Through a sheer force of will, she managed not to do that. “Well thank you anyway,” Clarke whispered. “For not mocking me or calling me crazy.”

Lexa hunched one shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

They lapsed back into silence and Lexa was only too happy to lose herself in study. Ignoring Clarke wasn’t easy, but she felt it would probably be for the best in the long run. Getting attached would only hurt later.

Clearly, Clarke had no such compunctions. It took her a long while to speak again, but when she did it was after she’d spent five minutes watching Lexa read. Feeling the small smile directed at her just made Clarke harder to ignore and it _sucked_.

“So why did you bail on me the other morning?”

Her pen _scritched_ sideways across the page as her fingers twitched. She sighed. “Excuse me?”

Clarke leaned forward on her elbows, her mouth twisting at the corners in a way that Lexa might diffidently label _teasing_. “I crashed on your couch,” she explained as if Lexa could’ve possibly forgotten. “And I said I’d buy you breakfast as thanks, but you were gone when I woke up.”

“You make it sound like I couldn’t have had something more important to do than have breakfast with a stranger,” she grumbled.

Hurt flashed across Clarke’s face at her words and Lexa wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t see it. “Did you?”

Lexa exhaled heavily. “I… no. I guess I just panicked,” she whispered. “I… Anya says I think too hard about things. I’m sorry.”

Something soft flickered in Clarke’s eyes then. As if she’d heard beyond just the words Lexa had said and found a hidden meaning. Perhaps something that Lexa didn’t want to say aloud. She was grateful for the silent understanding… if that’s truly what it was.

“Well that’s fair. You don’t know me,” Clarke actually laughed then. “Maybe I was only asking you to breakfast because I’m a serial killer. Probably smart on your part.”

Lexa’s brow furrowed. Somehow that felt like she was being mocked.

Before she could speak, Clarke added, “I’m not a serial killer, by the way. I’m a _cereal_ killer, but not a murderer.”

“That was awful,” Lexa groaned.

“I know!” And she sounded so happy about it. “You can stop avoiding me though, please. How are you supposed to get to know me if you hide in the library?”

“I’m not… That’s not…” But Lexa could feel her face go pink.

“I spoke to Anya,” Clarke told her. “She’s not afraid to share your secrets if she thinks it’s good for you. The library’s big though; I didn’t actually think I’d stumble across whatever secret hole you were hiding in.”

“That’s… stalking almost,” Lexa grumbled.

“Maybe,” Clarke agreed. “But I didn’t go out of my way to look for you. If that makes you feel any better. I was honestly here to study, not find you.”

It did, a little bit, but Lexa didn’t tell her that. “Alright.”

Clarke tilted her head. “And stop avoiding me? I didn’t think I was that scary.”

Lexa huffed a half-hearted laugh. “Okay. I’ll stop.” She didn’t deny the scary bit though, that was almost a truth.

“Great. So about breakfast…?”

“Maybe some other time,” she deflected. “I have a class in the morning. And I’ll need to know how prone you are to making bad puns before anything else.”

“Oh, well you’re in luck. I’m an expert with bad puns. Octavia’s thoroughly sick of them.”

That time Lexa didn’t bother to hold back the eye roll. “Wonderful.” She glanced at her watch again then and sighed; though she wasn’t sure if it was regretful or relieved. “I’m going back to my apartment. I need sleep.”

“Yep, okay. I’ll probably sleep here,” Clarke told her. “Be sure to say ‘hi’ next time we cross paths though.”

Lexa smiled as she stuffed her belongings back in her bag. She nodded. “Alright.”

Clarke wiggled her fingers after her as she left. “G’night!”


End file.
